35 SUBMISSION

35

SUBMISSION

Friday evening, twenty-four hours after Nash Deacon first came to dinner at his own invitation, the kitchen is more welcoming for their second "date." The table is draped with beige linen trimmed in lace. Vida does not have—or desire—expensive things; however, when her uncle was alive, he gave her items that he thought a girl should have, to add charm to holidays and special occasions, including four place settings of fine china. The white plates have narrow gold rims, as do the saucers and coffee cups. The cut-crystal stemware was also a gift from Uncle Ogden. She has purchased roses for the centerpiece, although they are white rather than red. The napkins match the tablecloth. There are no paper towels or plastic cups.

As instructed by Deacon, Vida is wearing her white dress, though with sneakers rather than the high heels that he specified. Full compliance in every detail would lead him to suspect that her submission is too sudden, too complete—–therefore insincere. The snugness of the silver-mesh choker is a constant reminder of the psychological leash he intends to attach to her, a reminder that encourages her to do what must be done as soon as circumstances allow and without misstep or misgiving.

Remember what he is. He paid a junkie to rape his wife and beat her to death with a hammer. Then he arranged the killer's death with a doctored overdose. The wife's murder is in the public records, though not the truth of it.

When she hears the Trans Am approaching through the eastern woods with a growl like a monster in some Scandinavian legend, Vida puts a loaf of home-baked sourdough on a cutting board and sets the board on the table. She pours cabernet, an inch more for her than for him. She places the glasses according to where she and Deacon sat the previous night.

As before, she has left the front door open. As before, he closes it behind him when he comes inside.

Stepping into the kitchen, the sheriff surveys the table. His smile is alike to that of a man who, having whipped a dog yesterday, is pleased to see the creature shrink from him today.

Vida offers no smile of her own and strikes no appealing pose, but faces him with the sullen expression of one who resents that she must put herself on display.

He takes off his hat and fans himself with it. "Young lady, I swear, if this was the dead of winter, you'd have no need of a furnace or a fireplace, what with the heat you put off yourself. That dress becomes you like I knew it would."

She crosses her arms. "I don't have to make nice. I don't have to like this."

"I understand how this is a moment that sticks in your craw. For sure, darlin', you don't have to like it. But later, when that dress isn't between us anymore, you'll like it well enough."

He puts the hat on the chair to the right of the one in which he'll sit. He's dressed much as he was the previous evening, but he's added a lightweight sport coat.

She says, "You wanted to know about Belden Bead. Sit down with your wine, and I'll tell you what happened to the bastard."

"So you don't have time for small talk? How my day was, how yours was, whether we saw a good movie lately?"

"Whatever you get from me, you don't get small talk. You don't get to humiliate me by making me play girlfriend."

His soft laugh is knowing and self-satisfied. "Honey, if I want to humiliate you, I got more interestin' ways than that. Sadly, you continue to underestimate me when you think you won't eventually be into this relationship and havin' fun. You just need to get over not doin' this by choice—and you will."

"What does that make me, then?"

"What does what make you?"

"Doing it not by choice but doing it anyway."

"Practical," he says. "It makes you practical."

"It makes me what I could never be."

"You'll be surprised what you can be."

"Not as low as you."

"You'll find yourself lower, darlin'. And likin' it. So tell me about Belden Bead. What befell the poor man?"

"First I've got to set the soup to simmer." She turns to the pot on the stove and picks up a ladle and stirs long enough for Deacon to do what she believes and hopes he'll do.

She sets aside the ladle, puts the lid on the pot so that it's canted to let the steam escape, faces him again, and sees he's done it. He's in his chair where she wanted him, but his wineglass is the one she meant for herself, the fuller of the two. Deacon distrusts her enough to switch the stemware and wait to see what happens.

She settles in her chair and picks up the glass meant for him and drinks from it without hesitation. She takes more than a sip, a lavish swallow.

Part of her strategy is to lead him to believe she's drinking to excess in order to numb herself for the ordeal of going to bed with him. He'll think she's drinking on an empty stomach; however, less than an hour before he arrived, she ate a substantial meal of steak and eggs, high protein that will digest slowly and somewhat delay the wine's effect. While she tells him about Bead and endures his questions, she should be able to consume two generous servings of cabernet faster than is wise without losing her edge—maybe three or four glasses if she can pull off another trick that she's set up.

She asks him to slice off a heel of the uncut loaf of sourdough and pass it to her. He watches as she butters the bread and takes a bite and swallows and drinks more wine. Then he butters a slice for himself. He drinks more judiciously than she does as she recounts the threat Bead made to have her evicted, describes why she began to suspect he intended to kill her, and comes at last to the bear spray and the gunfire and the backhoe.

Through all of that, she has poured a second glass from the bottle on the table and nearly finished it, while Deacon has drunk little more than half of his first serving.

His eyes, previously a sooty shade of brown, look almost black and as deep as wells. "So you're sayin' it was an accidental death?"

Vida shakes her head. "He shot himself when he meant to shoot me. That's not accidental. That's stupid."

"You have more of that bear spray?"

"Got to have it. There's always bears."

"Just so you know, I'm quicker and smarter than Belden."

She watches him swirl the wine in his glass.

He says, "You dug a mighty big hole for the man."

"Wasn't for the man. It was for the car. A man as small as he was hardly needed a hole at all."

"You could've dug no hole, called the sheriff instead."

"Sheriff Montrose sold himself to Boschvark even before you got the top job and started sucking on the New World Technology nipple."

Deacon is amused or pretends to be. "That won't work."

"What won't?"

"Offendin' me until you turn me off. All you do is turn me on more. I don't take offense."

"Because you have no shame."

"There you go. Plus I believe in payback. You stick it to me, later I'll enjoy dealin' out the payback."

She resorts to her wine and then says, "If I'd called Sheriff Montrose, I'd be rotting with Bead in his car, under the meadow. He'd have put me under."

"That's probably true. But then what you did brought you to me. Like destiny."

"Destiny is a clean thing. This is dirtier. This would be fate if it was anything. How hard was it to drive all the honest cops out of the department?"

"It's taken a determined effort."

He finally sips more wine.

She says, "What kind of man has no shame?"

"The kind who knows what he wants and always gets it. You'll come to appreciate that, darlin'. When you admit you belong to me, you'll feel safe, because no one dares damage what's mine."

"You can't own a person."

"Well now, I already own you, girl. You just don't want to know it yet."

As if the intensity of his stare disturbs her, she looks away and then quickly meets his eyes again to assert that she doesn't fear him, but looks away once more.

"Got to finish the soup." She knocks against the table as she gets up from her chair. She carries the nearly empty wineglass to the cooktop, rattles it against the counter as she puts it down.

"The bread is good," Deacon says. "You made it yourself?"

At the stove, taking the lid off the pot, she says, "I don't like store-bought bread."

"It's got a nice crust. The egg-custard pie you had in the fridge on Wednesday—that was homemade, too."

"Yeah." She picks up a bowl of egg whites prepared earlier and drops the contents into the pot.

"What soup are you makin'?"

"Lentil with bacon and chopped hard-boiled-egg whites."

"I like the smell. The soup's and yours both."

Picking up a half-empty wine bottle from the counter and pouring, she says, "Finished with a few ounces of Napa's finest."

"Main course in the oven smells grand."

"Pork tenderloin with roasted potatoes."

"You're a twofer, darlin'. Kitchen to bedroom, you got what it takes to fill me and drain me."

He's pushing her to gauge whether her resentment and bitterness are to any extent giving way to resignation or perhaps even to the spiritless apathy that a victim can retreat into when there is no hope of escaping some horror. There is risk in being either too obstinate or too compliant. She must seem to be in retreat from hope but not yet on the brink of imminent surrender—indignant enough to want to insult him, but fearful enough to be concerned that she might goad him into assaulting her.

Emptying the bottle brings the wine in her glass nearly to the brim. "Well, Sheriff, filling you might take an hour, but I suspect draining you won't take a minute."

This time, Deacon doesn't say whether he finds her response amusing, offensive, or both. "You just gave yourself two glasses of wine in one. You chug that, you'll have had four. Don't get sloppy."

The cabernet she poured from the now empty wine bottle beside the cooktop is actually grape juice. Rather than risk affecting a slur that might be unconvincing, she adopts a sullen impudence, which is likely to seem childish to him and to comport with his belief that women are lesser creatures in thrall to their emotions. "Maybe the best way I get through this is unconscious."

"It's how I like it now and then," he says. "Especially makes sense the first time. No need to hear what silly shit you might say, won't have to keep tellin' you to shut up. I can concentrate better on the basic merchandise, all its qualities. Plus when you wake up, it'll be different enough to seem like we had our first time twice in one night. Just don't get sloppy. You puke before you pass out, I'll make you eat it when you wake up."

He's an abomination. Hatred isn't a strong-enough word for the feeling he evokes. She represses any evidence of her abhorrence in favor of appearing weakened by fear and grieving for the loss of freedom that is inevitable if he moves in with her. She holds her wineglass in both hands to bring it shakily to her mouth, and she lets it chatter against her teeth before drinking. She won't go so far as to pretend dread by letting a trickle spill down her chin; she's certain she'll need a white dress for one future occasion or another, and she doesn't want to have to buy a new one.

"Come sit down."

"I'm good here."

"Come sit and be yourself with me."

"Who am I being already if not myself?"

"You're playin' a cold fish."

"I am what I am."

"Which isn't that."

"You'll see."

"Come sit down. Tell me about your day."

"The soup is almost done."

"It's simmerin'. It won't burn."

"I don't want . . ."

"I know what you don't want. What you think you don't want. What you pretend you don't want. Come sit down."

"I mean, I don't want this to go wrong. The dinner. I don't want you to be upset."

"You don't want me to be upset."

"Yes."

"That's new for you, darlin'."

"I mean angry. I don't want you to be angry. I'm trying with this dinner. I really am. I'm trying to ... come to terms with what's happened, what is. It isn't easy."

"It can be easy."

"Well, it isn't."

He samples his wine. "What do you imagine I'm like when I'm very angry?"

"I don't know."

"You must have some thoughts on the subject."

"Yeah, but I don't want to think about it." She drinks her faux cabernet.

"I was never angry with Tanya, my wife, just frustrated by the endless naggin' about a baby. I don't get very angry, darlin'. I just get done what needs done."

She sets her wineglass on the counter. "I'll serve the soup. You want to hear about my day, then I'll tell you about it when we sit down to the soup."

Two deep bowls stand on the counter, one nestled in the other. While Deacon watches her, she sets them side by side and ladles soup from the pot until both bowls are full. She takes his bowl to the table and then brings her own and sits.

"Your wine," he says, because she left it by the cooktop.

"I'm dizzy. A little queasy."

"What did I tell you?"

"I know."

"I don't ever want to see you pour it down like that again."

"Two glasses are my limit. I never have more. Until now."

"I hope that's true. From now on, it'll be true. I'll see to that. Eat some soup. It'll help."

She picks up her spoon but only stares at the soup.

"Is this a sayin' grace house?" he asks.

"Mostly."

"Just eat. You say, ‘Thank you, Nash,' and just eat."

Vida doesn't thank him, but she eats.

After he watches her for a minute or so, he attends to his soup, having seen the bowls filled from the same pot. "This is delicious, girl. Got some bite to it."

"A touch of jalape?o," she says, which she added to explain why his tongue and throat would burn from just the second spoonful.

He says, "So much flavor."

"Seven different herbs plus the bacon," she says, which she employed not merely to enhance the flavor of the lentils, but also to mask the faint taste of the key ingredient in the event that he should be sensitive to it.

"I could take a second bowl of this."

"There's plenty."

"It's good sopped up with bread."

"Don't forget there's pork tenderloin for after."

"I have big appetites, darlin'. You'll learn how big."

In about three minutes, his table manners less than refined, Nash Deacon has eaten most of his soup. His voracity is desirable in this case, for symptoms of monkshood poisoning can become extreme in as little as two minutes and never take longer than ten to manifest.

She says, "You ever heard of a place called the Smoking River?"

"Not around here."

"The words ‘two moon, sun spirit' mean anything to you?"

His spoon clatters into the bowl and he sits up straight, eyes shocked wide, though he's not reacting to her question. The heat he attributed to the jalape?os has abruptly progressed to a numbness of tongue, throat, and face. When he says, "What is what you did this," he is not only incoherent but also slurs his words. His vision will have suddenly blurred. The skin over most of his body is tingling.

As Vida gets to her feet, Deacon thrusts up and knocks over his chair and falls to the floor.

She circles the table, plucks the inch-thick breadboard out from under what remains of the loaf, and stands over the sheriff as he gropes under his sport coat as if he's come to serve papers but has forgotten in which pocket he carries an eviction notice. She assumes that he has a pistol in a shoulder rig or a belt scabbard, and it's the latter. As Deacon fumbles the weapon from the holster, Vida chops hard at his wrist with the edge of the breadboard. He drops the pistol. She throws aside the board and snatches up the gun, determined that this will not be a near thing, as was the encounter with Belden Bead.

Slick with sweat, Deacon's face is pale clay, molded and carved by rage that is less an expression than a revelation of the deformed mind his plain features can no longer mask. She turns from him as he vomits, and she walks out of the kitchen.